ThoseGeneva policy
Cédric Lambert, the last dinosaur de Versoix
The centrist magistrate, in office since 2007, bows out after a final legislature polluted by the “vigousse affair”.
Cédric Lambert, outgoing administrative advisor from Versoix, poses in front of the Bolero cultural center, on Place de la Gare, in Versoix, June 19, 2025.
Magali Girardin
- Last episode of our series of outgoing mayor’s portraits.
- The centrist Cédric Lambert sat at the Versoix Administrative Council between 2007 and 2025.
- The magistrate saw the Bolero cultural center lead. His last legislature is marked by the Vigousse case.
Cédric Lambert immediately made this confession: he “does not like to deal with journalists”. The former mayor of Versoix, known for his courtesy, marks a break and resumes. “Finally, it’s a job like any other, not easy,” he concedes behind his fine turtle scales glasses.
«The vigousse affair “ has been there. Questioning the management of the secretary general, the article published in 2021 by the satirical newspaper will have shaken the municipal administration, divided its administrative council, polluted the last legislatureuntil taking a judicial turn. With a savory invoice for the Versoisian taxpayer: 300,000 francs in lawyers and justice fees.
Loss of the historic seat of the PDC in Versoix
Cédric Lambert assumes the defensive posture he adopted. It was necessary to “modernize” the management of human resources and the secretary general was the man of the situation. “He restructured the administration to have more directive conduct so that the Administrative Council can be discharged from operational affairs and more in a political and strategic role,” defends the elected official of the center today.
Nevertheless. The last elections in the lake city turned into a confrontation between the pros and the anti-vigorous. And these are the first who won it this spring. Consequence for the center: the loss of the headquarters that its ancestor the PDC held at the town hall since 1917. A cataclysm. “This affair has damaged our image,” recognizes Véronique Schmied, president of the Versoix Center.
Cédric Lambert: man of file
In 2020, it was another dinosaur of municipal politics that trusted its reverence. The departure of PLR Patrick Malek-Ashgar had the effect of pushing Cédric Lambert on the front line. Over the course of the debates stretched with the municipal council, the sixty -year -old has given way to see another face than that, amending, of his first three legislatures. Less open to discussion and little comfortable in the balance of power.
“He is a man of file,” said Véronique Schmied modestly. “He is precise and he always has the argument that is necessary,” adds the former councilor. In fact, this last mandate has almost relegated its achievements in the background, in terms of town planning, but also in the fields of social and culture, which it previously directed, between 2007 and 2015.
The commune was transformed during the past decade, thanks in particular to the creation of the Bolero art and culture center in 2014. “Versoix experienced a cultural development and Cédric Lambert invested a lot for this”, notes Julien Marquis, ex-municipal elected PLR who became an administrative advisor.
This new development born on the wasteland of the station plateau has erased the border which historically separates Versoix-Bourg (the lake) and Versoix-la-Ville (the dwellings).
An ecological fiber that leads to politics
It is as president of the association of inhabitants of the Cité Montfleury that Cédric Lambert tastes for the first time for political commitment. In the mid -90s, he fights against the establishment of a 3e SCF route, from which he points to the impact in terms of noise pollution.
Arrived at the end of the lake at the age of 25, the original Brussels resident will kiss an academic career there. The sociologist today exercises as a teaching manager at the Institute of Environmental Sciences of the University.
His time at the Administrative Council is an opportunity for him to demonstrate his ecological fiber. He works for the Renaturation of the Versoix and deploys an arsenal of measures in favor of biodiversity in urban areas. It also opposes the bioactive discharge of the chews. “A fight still underway,” recalls this father of three children.
Cédric Lambert is a follower of vests and a pin’s guitar is stapled on the one he sports on this morning in June. He reveals himself passionate about music and says he has around forty guitars. During the last municipal council of the legislature, at the end of May, he preferred to play a few songs “rather than making a long farewell speech”.
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